sikhpride

Navtej Singh Sarna, an Indian Foreign Service officer of 1980 batch, was born in 1957 at Jalandhar, Punjab, India in the house of a noted Punjabi writer S. Mahinder Singh Sarna. He had his early education from St. Joseph Academy, Dehradun. After joining Indian Foreign Service, he has held many important posts including that of the spokesperson of the Ministry for a record period of six years from 2002-2008. With this period of service as the spokesperson, he has become one of the longest-serving spokesperson of the Ministry. His other important postings include those at Moscow, Warsaw, Tehran, Geneva and Thimpu. In the beginning of 2016, he was appointed India’s High Commissioner in London, but only eight months after he was given the prestigious posting of Ambassador to USA. It may be mentioned here that he was in Washington earlier also when he was Minister for Press Information and Culture from 1998-2002. He has raised the prestige of Sikh turban by working in Sikhi sarup at important National and International positions. It is not only because of his brilliant diplomatic career that he is a role-model, he possess some other ability also which has made him popular among the people. This ability is of a great writer. Several books written by him include fiction as well as non-fiction. He also writes short stories, and book reviews. His first novel published was ‘We Weren’t Lovers Like That’ in 2003, followed by ‘The Book of Nanak’ in the same year, his latest, ‘The Exile’, published in 2008, is based on the life of Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Lahore, and son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. His latest book ‘Second Thoughts on Books, Authors and the Writerly Life’ was released last year. He was a big hit in London’s literary circles and had also become, in a short span, a popular figure in the Indian community in the Britain. S. Sarna is quite humble, soft spoken and helpful for the people. Thus, he is a role-model not only as a diplomat, but also as a popular writer and an excellent human being.